Friday, January 30, 2009

Hey, kids, look what I found! Only two days after posting a potpourri of photomontage collages from Jack "King" Kirby's Fantastic Four, I was re-reading the twelve-issue 2001 retro-style miniseries Fantastic Four: The World's Greatest Comics Magazine. The series is a great romp that I oughta get around to reviewing one of these days, since I consider it one of the most fun comics ever! A veritable modern Bullpen of Marvel artists joined together to create a mega-cosmic FF story in the style of Lee and Kirby, creating a retcon adventure that fits between Fantastic Four #100 and 101 and involves our Fearlessly Frenzied foursome teaming up with virtually every other hero in the Marvel Universe of 1970, from Spider-Man to Captain Mar-Vell, up against a crazed Doc Doom wielding the Cosmic Cube against Galactus. It's Lee-tastic and Kirby-riffic!

I'd re-read the series to see if I could find a buncha good Ben Grimm images (and boy howdy, did I!) but the big surprise was the final page of issue #8 (pencilled by Rick Veitch and inked by Terry Beatty), which is a homage not only to the style of Kirby but also to his fantastic photomontages, as cosmic-powered Doom leaps into the Negative Zone. So, here's a special bonus Friday FFotomontage, in the style and spirit of Kirby but with the dreamtastic drama of Roarin' Rick!:

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

It's the mid-sixties! (Well, not now it isn't, but bear with me here; I'm tryin' to make a point!) It's a time of change and turmoil. Malcolm X is assassinated; the Vietnam War rages on despite protests, the Beatles claim to be more popular than Jesus, Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde is released, the first man to walk in space...uh, walks in space, the Warner Brothers cartoon division is closed, Winston Churchill passes away, Star Trek premieres, Hurricane Betsy devastates New Orleans, Cassius Clay wallops Sonny Liston. And, perhaps most shocking and earth-shattering in this world of tumult and transformation...the motion picture The Sound of Music debuts.

Meanwhile, comic books are 12¢. Whatta bargain! 'Specially if you're zipping down to Pop's Sodium Shop to finger through the spinner rack and tug out copies of Marvel's flagship title, Fantastic Four. This is the period where Stan Lee and Jack Kirby stretched the boundaries of superhero comics just like Mister Fantastic stuck in a taffy pulleven more so than when they reinvented the whole genre back in the early sixties. Stan's scripts became more frantic, funny and frenzied; Jack's artwork became bigger, bolder, more energetic and powerful than every before: a perfect storm of widescreen entertainment that could be rolled up and stuck in yours back pocket. Each and every month in the pages of FF, Messrs. K. and L. assured the public their production would be second to none. We got such huger-than-life characters like The Silver Surfer and Galactus, Psycho-Man, Black Panther, and the Uncanny Inhumans (featuring Kirby's most gorgeous creation to date, the lovely Lockjaw Crystal). Also, Wyatt Wingfoot.

As Jack experimented with larger panels, huge multi-spread splash pages, dynamic fight scenes and introspective character portraits, he also brought a radical new technique for the first time to Fantastic Four: his famous (some might say infamous) photomontages. In these innovative panels and pages, Kirby would Photostat his artwork over a photograph (sometimes in black and white, sometimes colorized or tinted) to create a collage unlike anything else seen in Marvel comics. At their best the photomontages approached a realistic 3D; even when they visually failed (usually due to the relatively poor printing processes of the period) they were still bold visual experiments. Let's hop in Doctor Doom's Time Machine (just kick those Arby's wrappers out onto the floor...Victor kinda lives outta his Time Machine), set the controls for 1964 and beyond, and tune into wonders of the fourth-dimensional mind of The King, Jack Kirby:

Fantastic Four #29 (August 1964)
Click on any image to King-size

Fantastic Four #32 (November 1964)

Fantastic Four #33 cover (December 1964)

Fantastic Four #33 (December 1964)

Fantastic Four #37 (April 1965)

My favorite part of that last one? Stan's earnest explanation of why the photo might seem a little muddy in reproduction:

That last one is a bit murky, perhaps showing off the limitations of the comic book printing and range of colors at the time. But the experiment isn't over, not by a long shot. Maybe it's no coincidence that my two favorite Kirby photomontages are these later two which brought the technique into the double-page spread widescreen format at the same time it more fully integrated the FF characters into the surroundings than ever before:

Fantastic Four #62 (May 1967)

Fantastic Four Annual #6 (1968)

Whoa. That last one shoulda come in a black light version.

Kirby would continue the visual photomontages in his later work, most notably in various issues of his Fourth World books over at DC. It's a pity he did his work before the age of Photoshop, before the dawn of much-improved printing procedures, wider ranges of printed color, and deluxe paperbut then again, knowing how innovative the man was, he'd probably now be amazing us with a technique light-years beyond anything we'd seen. If Stan's scripts filled us with a sense of action and adventure, then Jack's artwork gave us its energy and power...and in his photomontages, awe and wonder over the vastness of unexplored space, undersea, or the Negative Zone.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I'm in the money, I'm in the money... Oh, hi! I didn't see you there! I just got my weekly paycheck (from selling copies of Grit magazine ("Grit: celebrating rural America since 1882"). So yes, that jingling and jangling you here...that's cold, hard, American cash burnin' a hole in my little pocket! (Also, my Tinkerbell video game.) Let's go buy some cool stuff, shall we? And there's no place better way to spend my $4.44 than to head into midtown Manhattan, hop on the 6 train and get off at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue. Look up at that skyscraper towering above us...that's the fabulous Baxter Building, home of the world's most amazing quartet of superheroes, the Fantastic Four! And just like all great sightseeing venues like the Louvre, the Taj Mahal, and that Texas restaurant where Ben Grimm once ate a 72 ounce steak just to get his name on the wall...there's a gift shop. In this case, the fabulous and frantic Fantastic Store!:

Step inside this amazing fantastic shop, and manually widen your eyes in wonder at the incredible fantastic souvenirs and other uncanny fantastic loot your hard-earned wampum will buy! Why, I want one of those back-scratchers in the shape of Ben Grimm's crusty paw, and a bottle of "Sue Storm Invisible Bath Beads," and what visit to The Fantastic Store is complete without picking up your very own Willie Lumpkin action figure?

What's that? You say you can't make it to The Fantastic Store, because you're cut off from Manhattan by secretly invading Skrull armadas, a rogue Negative Zone eruption, or maybe you're just plain not on Earth-616? Have no fear, Bully's here! With The Fantastic Store Online...all the finest trinkets, toys, souvenirs and shi stuff that Johnny Storm hurriedly stamped "approved" because he was late for his date with Amy Winehouse! (Remember kids...alcohol and open flames don't mix!). Get your mouse a-revvin' and limber up your clickin' finger to buy some Fantastic Four merchandise. Remember...and I cross my little satin heart here...everything you see is exactly as it's currently titled and pictured on Amazon.com. they may be goofy, mis-conceived, titled incorrectly or displayed on Amazon with the wrong image...they're all weirder than the Impossible Man, but they're all as real as Stan Lee. (Click on the links if'n you don't believe me!) You can't make up this stuff, folks!